Vampire Myths Revisited
by daccu65
Summary: The second of my Mythbusters stories. The gang look into additional vampire myths and get into more trouble.


_I do not own the Mythbusters. This work is intended solely for the enjoyment of those unfortunate enough to read it._

Vampire Myths Revisited

The Mythbusters met in Jamie's office shortly after sundown.

"Okay everyone," Jamie began. "This is the first time we've all been able to meet after our last 'Vampires Myths' project. I would like start by saying welcome back to both Adam and Kari, and to congratulate everyone on a job well done."

"Before we discuss which myths we will be tackling next, let's recap what we found out from the 'Vampire Myths' tests."

"First of all, the myth that a vampire cannot enter your home without an invitation?"

"Confirmed," replied Grant. "Not only that, but we also proved that vampires are subject to conditional invitations."

"In addition," interjected Adam, "we proved that living in a dwelling for a week causes the dwelling to become your home. We don't know how much less than a week is possible, but a week does do it."

"Okay, officially myth confirmed. How about silver and vampires?"

"Minor reactions," Tory reported. "A vampire's skin is essentially unaffected by contact with silver, but the vampire's internal tissues are subject to a moderate reaction. Furthermore, we proved that vampires take very little harm from the tissue trauma delivered by firearms."

"Myth confirmed, with conditions, how about being powerless against a vampire once you invite it into your home?"

"Wait one minute, Jamie!" It was Kari. "I'm taking a great deal of offense at being referred to as an 'it'. We are individual's, not things!"

"Point taken," Jamie apologized. "Does inviting a vampire into your home leave you helpless against him or her?"

"Not at all," Kari answered. "Garlic and blessed crosses work no matter what."

"Okay, myth busted, what else have we found out?"

"I'd like to talk about some of my experiences, since my change," said Kari.

"I'd really like to hear about it," Adam replied.

"First of all, I've noticed that my senses are much sharper. I can hear and smell things I had never noticed when I was alive. While my eyesight has suffered some degradation in normal light, my night vision has become much better."

"This makes sense," Jamie mused. "You have become essentially a nighttime predator. Since daylight is deadly to you, daytime vision is worthless, but you need sharper senses at night."

"My concentration has taken a hit," she continued. "I haven't been able to focus long enough to enjoy a good book since changing. My emotions also seem more intense. Not only do I lose my temper easily, but a good movie can reduce me to tears, and a stand-up routine can leave me helpless with laughter."

"Remind me to keep an eye on the kidding," said Adam. "But just for the record, you _did_ die a couple of weeks ago. Could the emotional trauma of your alteration be to blame, rather than the change itself?"

"It is a possibility," Kari admitted. "We will have to see as time goes by."

"What about your physical strength." Tory seemed very interested.

"Vastly increased," Kari said with a smile, "I can bench press over a quarter-ton. In addition, my reaction time has dropped. To be perfectly honest, you living folks seem to be very slow to me, now."

"I've got a question," asked Tory. "Do you need to breathe?"

"Only to talk," she replied. "While I'm more comfortable with air in my lungs, I don't seem to consume oxygen."

"How about eating," asked Adam. "Have you managed to drink blood yet, and do you need to eat to maintain your existence?"

Kari shuddered. "The idea of drinking blood nauseates me, but it's beginning to loose its repulsion. I've gotten together with a nutritionist, and we have come up with a high-protein, soybean-based substitute. I'll have to judge the effectiveness of this as time goes by."

"How much of this fake blood do you need each day?" It was Adam again.

"I really don't know yet. So far I may be living on the energy reserves I had while alive. Again, I'll have to watch, observe, and react."

"If you don't mind," mused Jamie. "I would like you to keep a diary. That way we can learn more about you. Besides that, you might just learn more about yourself."

"Good idea," Kari replied. "That brings up some items to test. I don't think that anyone has really performed scientific diagnostics on vampires before. While it isn't really a myth, it might be interesting to find out just how much my daylight vision has degraded and how much my strength has increased."

"I like it!" Jamie exclaimed. "Like you said, it isn't actually myth-busting, but it is interesting. However, the only subject we have to work with is sitting in this room right now."

"I don't mind being the center of attention, depending on the test."

"How about muscle response," suggested Tory. "Lifting weights makes living humans stronger. It would be interesting to put you on a weight lifting regimen and see if your altered body reacts by bulking up. We could get one of the mythterns to do the same and compare your results."

"That's fine by me, it gives me the chance to show off these new muscles."

"I'm more interested in your food intake," said Grant. "I would like you to record your dietary intake. We could then compare your caloric efficiency to a living person."

"That's fine too."

"Hold it!" Adam was clearly irritated.

"This is all fine and good, but I've had enough of messing with the supernatural! Every time we've done it, we have run into disaster."

"Don't you think you're being a little excitable?" Jamie Asked.

"Not at all," Adam countered. "If you haven't noticed, Kari is _dead_. Our first Vampires Myths episode cost us two mythterns and our test subject. Finally, our voodoo myths episode resulted in the Pope keeping an eye on us, probably for good reason."

"Fine," said Jamie. "Why don't you head the traditional effort, exploring and explaining myths and urban legends? That way, we can pay the bills while I investigate the supernatural."

"Good enough for me. I never want to run afoul of anything that science can't explain ever again. I'll hit the email and find some viewer requests to deal with."

As soon as Adam left, Tory voiced a question that had been haunting the build team for over a year.

"Jamie," he asked. "Just what happened during your voodoo myths episode? It was just the two of you doing it, and you destroyed all of your records as well as the footage. I asked Adam, but he just muttered something about 'dress wearing hit-goons' and wouldn't say anything else."

"I'm not at liberty to tell the full story. The only thing that I'll say is that by the time it was all over Adam had gone through an exorcism, the Vatican found out what we had done, and we received a very unpleasant visit."

"The so called 'dress wearing hit-goons'?"

"Yep, the report went right up to the Pope himself and he let us know how much he disapproved and how much power he had. We had two archbishops, three Mafia Don's, and representatives from the CIA and the IRS all piled in here. They got rough. Bottom line up front, they let us know that if we didn't want to get excommunicated, investigated, murdered, and audited we would keep the web-cam active in the shop at all times, so that the Vatican could keep an eye on us."

"So if we cross the line, you get another visit?" Kari asked.

"It's not quite so bad. I just go up to the camera and describe what I intend to investigate. The Vatican will call me within a couple of days and let me know if I can go forward or not. They try to work with me, since they can make use of some of the things we discover."

"Okay, fine," said Tory. "So what are we going to check out?"

"Just what we discussed," answered Jamie. "We will test Kari's normal light vision degradation, her muscle response, and her caloric efficiency."

"Assuming," he added, "that you don't have any objections."

"None," said Kari. "What harm could come out of this?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three weeks later, Jamie had another meeting with his insurance agent; to discuss the harm caused by investigating the myths.

"Okay then," said the agent. "Before we start I want you to know that I'm ready for you this time. I've got my desk stocked with painkillers and antacids. If I understand these claims, you allege that vampires are real, and that these damages and injuries are the result of investigating 'the state of vampirehood'."

"I made that word up myself."

"You must be very proud, but please answer the question."

"Yes, I wanted to know more about the vampiric state of being," replied Jamie.

The agent mustered all of the enthusiasm he had when he went to his dentist to have three impacted wisdom teeth removed, and continued. "So then, why don't you start at the beginning? I understand that you sought to test a vampire's vision alterations, the ability of a vampire to become stronger through weight lifting, and caloric efficiency?"

"Exactly."

The agent took a deep breath, savored a final moment of sanity, and plunged on. "How did you test these items and, lord help me, how did this testing result in these injury and damage claims?

"Actually, the testing didn't cause the incidents. We had learned our lessons from the earlier tests."

"Yes, I understand one of your employees had become a vampire in this previous episode? Apparently nothing teaches caution as much as dying."

"No pain, no gain. We were tame with the testing. We started out by hiring a personal trainer for Kari, our subject, and a mythtern as a control. We intended to find out about both caloric efficiency and the ability to 'bulk up' by comparing the two's results during a similar work out program."

"It always scares me when you make sense, but go ahead."

"The problem was that Kari grew weaker as time passed. For some reason she was just withering away. She was always hungry, and literally guzzling her fake blood, but she was loosing weight. We took her off of the weight program but it didn't help. She was dying."

"Wasn't she already dead?"

"Alright, wise guy, she was loosing animation. She was clearly in trouble, but we couldn't help her. We took her to several doctors but they couldn't help either. Apparently the American Medical Association doesn't stress care of the animate dead very much."

"Shocking indeed, but it doesn't explain the events that caused your claims."

"Right, we thought that maybe she needed real blood, that perhaps the soy-based substitute just wasn't providing her with her nutritional needs. We hired one of the technicians from the local blood service, and we all donated a half-unit of blood. She managed to drink this, with a great deal of effort and some very amusing expressions."

"Did it help?"

"We thought so, she claimed to feel much better after feeding, but she collapsed later that night."

"What did you do?"

"We couldn't tell if she had fainted, or if she was actually gone forever. We called an ambulance but the emergency medical technicians were at a complete loss. What were they supposed to do? She didn't have any vital signs to monitor. They started CPR, loaded her up, and ran to the nearest hospital. I told our mythtern, Jess, to let the others know what had happened, then I jumped in my car and followed the ambulance."

"What happened."

"Well, obviously I couldn't drive as fast as the ambulance. By the time I got there, the doctor on duty had declared her dead. She had already been carted off to the morgue. I told the doctor that she was really a vampire, but he didn't believe me. In fact, he seemed to think that I was insane and possibly dangerous."

"Doctors must be smarter than insurance agents. It took me two weeks to come to the same conclusion."

"He called security on me."

"I can understand the inclination."

Two security officers arrived about the same time as Adam, Grant, and Tory. We had a big argument before the officers suggested we leave before they called the police. Adam suggested we do what they told us, since he had just received a call from Jess."

"Your mythtern?"

"Yep, she's sharp. As soon as everyone else left, she ran to our web-cam."

"The one that's monitored by the Vatican?"

"Yep, she explained exactly what had happened and asked for help. She received a fax telling her what was happening to Kari."

"So the Vatican keeps information on vampires?"

"Of course. While they don't often volunteer information, they decided to respond to the direct request for help. The problem was with Kari's attempts to feed."

"What was wrong?"

"According to them, simply drinking blood doesn't nourish a vampire. In order for a vampire to gain strength from feeding, there must be an unbroken stream of blood between the 'donator' and the feeding vampire. They said that the vampire could bite the victim or use needles, it didn't matter. As long as there was a continuous stream of blood between the vein and the vampire's mouth, the vampire would gain strength."

"So Jess told Adam this?"

"Yes, she also told him that she would load up the goats and head for the hospital."

"What goats?"

"Adam was testing a myth that other animals could be used in place of guard dogs."

"But goats?"

"Adam tries to be thorough."

"But why bring the goats?"

"The Vatican said that vampires can feed on animal life as well as human, so she thought that it would be better to risk the goats than humans."

"God help me, but that makes sense."

"Anyway, Jess somehow managed to cram two goats into the back of her car and drove to the hospital."

"I guess that explains the damage claims to her car."

"Yep, goat hooves, teeth, and sign did quite a number on the upholstery."

"So what happened next?"

"The Vatican had also said that Kari would only remain comatose for a short time, two hours at the most. At the end of this time she would wake up in a mindless, violent state and attack any living body she could find. If she managed to feed, she would regain her sanity. If she didn't, she would truly die within the hour. Adam had a plan to save her."

"Which was?"

"Tory, Grant, and I split up and set off the hospital's fire alarm system at three separate places, at the same time. This gave Adam the distraction he needed to get to the morgue."

"He knew the way to the morgue?"

"If there's one place Adam has come to know well it's the layout of that hospital."

"I should have guessed, from all of the claims we have gotten, but what did he do when he got to the morgue?"

"He sneaked in and found out where Kari was stored. He had a needle and tube, which he had taken from the blood service technicians earlier. We laugh at Adam a lot but he did something brave. He tapped into one of his own veins and started to feed her his own living blood."

"I assume he successfully revived her."

"Oh yes, but she hadn't fed enough to regain her sanity. If you were to boil catnip in tuna oil, rub it on a mouse, then wave the mouse in front of a starving cat, you'd get an idea of how Kari was looking at Adam."

"What did he do?"

"The smart thing. He ran for his life. Kari pursued. We had agreed to meet up at the Emergency Room later so that's where Adam headed."

"I take it you met up."

"Oh yes! Tory, Grant, and I were there, along with the doctor. The doctor had just called security again and was sternly telling us that he sympathized with our loss but we had to come to terms with the fact that Kari was gone. Right about then Adam came running in with his eyes bigger than dinner plates and the needle still in his arm, dripping blood. Kari was right behind him."

"I take it the doctor was shocked."

"That's putting it mildly. He had declared her dead less than an hour before and here she was, with her toe-tag still on, chasing Adam."

"I hate to admit this, but I'm beginning to enjoy the story, what happened next."

"In Kari's insane state she was only paying attention to Adam since he was bleeding. The only thing that saved him was the fact that the custodial staff had just finished mopping the floor. Adam did a sort of baseball slide, grabbed a counter and swept himself out of Kari's path. She didn't have traction on the floor. She kept going straight and plowed right through a wall and into a storage room."

"That explains the bills from the carpenter and the painter. Does this also explain the claims to replace some medical supplies?"

"Yes. She knocked over, and became entangled with, several selves full of supplies. She fought her way out of them and jumped back out through the hole in the wall, breaking it wider, just as security showed up."

"What did they do?"

"They stared in complete disbelief. Keep in mind that Kari was almost nude, with only a sheet wrapped around her. The two security officers expected to find Adam, Tory, Grant, and myself arguing with a doctor. Instead they found a scantily clad dead woman, trailing sheet rock, chasing a terrified, bleeding man around the room, occasionally throwing one of the three of us out of her way. All the while the doctor was standing, rooted to the spot, gibbering incoherently. The security guards were trying to figure out what to do when the doctor regained his senses enough to tell them to restrain Kari."

"Did they have any success?"

No, because then Jess showed up with the goats."

"How was this a problem?"

"Remember that I told you that Adam was trying to see if the goats could be substituted for guard dogs? We had hired a guard-dog company to help us train them. Unfortunately, this company's employees had worn uniforms similar to hospital security when training the goats to attack."

The agent reached in his drawer and looked at his bottle of antacids. The instructions said to take a maximum dose of two tablets. He did so before speaking again. "So," he continued, "The goats attacked the security officers?"

"Yep, it was confusion in the Emergency Room, I'll tell you that."

"I can believe it. I assume that the goat attack explains the reason we have claims for new security uniforms, as well as some minor injuries to the security guards?"

"Exactly, goat horns are sharp. It was Kari throwing the rest of us around that explains the furniture that needed to be replaced."

"Okay, more is explained. What happened next?"

"Emergency dispatch had sent the police to check on the fire alarms we had set off."

"Why not the Fire Department?"

"There was a patrol car in the area. Dispatch sent them to investigate before taking the chance of sending the firefighters to a false alarm."

"How do you know this? Wait, you've caused enough calls to dispatch to become familiar with the way they work, haven't you?"

"You've got me all figured out. Anyway, two police officers showed up. At first they were a little confused. Apparently they weren't ready to walk into a situation where two goats were attacking two security officers, who were trying to restrain a scantily clad dead woman, who was throwing three grown men around in an effort to bite a hysterical, bleeding man, all on a slippery floor. It must have looked like a Russian folk dance at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally."

Jamie paused and looked up with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Maybe they should expand the education at the Police Academy to cover situations like this."

"I don't think they really need to worry about it."

"I take it you've never seen something like this?"

"Please leave my Internet viewing habits out of this and tell me if you managed to restrain Kari without further incident."

"Right, well the police were from San Francisco, so they were more able to come to grips with the surreal than most other cops. One of them tazered the goats while the rest of us dog piled Kari. The other one managed to put cuffs on her hands and feet, and that really calmed things down. Once the bodies, and the goat poop, quit flying around, the doctor checked Kari for vital signs and still found no pulse or heartbeat."

"What did he do?"

"Since he had a woman with no pulse trying to bite him, he was much more inclined to believe me. He had some of his staff fetch more of those needles and tubes they use to draw blood. Grant, Tory, and myself each donated another half unit of blood directly into Kari's mouth. We also tapped both goats for some, as well."

"What did the police think about all of this?"

"They demanded copies of the security camera recordings, to accompany their incident reports. They apparently thought their Shift Captain might not believe them."

"Imagine that!"

"Anyway, once we had fed Kari, she quickly regained her rationality. Was she ever embarrassed."

"I can just about imagine."

"The rest of that incident was pretty dull. We had some hassle with getting her released since she _is_ clinically dead. Fortunately for us, nobody really wanted any of their superiors looking at the incident terribly closely, so we got her out of there with a minimum of fuss. The hardest part was getting the goats back in a car and convincing Jess not to quit."

"So what happened after this?"

"Kari set up a Vampire Crisis support center."

"A what!?"

"It's similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know the twelve steps and all of that. Standing up in front of the group and saying 'Hello, my name is Kari and I'm a dead parasite.' 'Hi, Kari.' 'It's been six days since I've bitten a terrified victim.' That sort of thing. She is apparently making great strides in reforming some of the City's vampire population."

"There's enough vampires to actually warrant this?"

"I guess so, Kari says that participation is growing. She's trying to get some public assistance money, but self-help for the deceased isn't a high priority for social spending."

The agent gulped four more antacid tablets. "I am more interested in these remaining claims," he said. "We have some psychological counseling for Mr. Imahara."

"Okay," said Jamie. "After the incident at the hospital, we resumed our original tests. We threw out the fake blood and worked out a deal with a couple of ranches and slaughterhouses so that Kari could get fresh blood. She didn't like it much, but she needed it, and we helped her as much as we could. Anyway, Grant recorded her blood intake, as well as the amount of energy she was expending with Tory's weightlifting tests. We were also monitoring her weight, in order to make sure she wouldn't collapse again."

"Like I said before, I hate it when you make sense. But please get back to the point."

"Fine. The living blood diet was restoring her strength. She started to gain weight, which was good. Her energy output was unbelievable! Standard exercise equipment just didn't have the resistance needed to give her a workout. We wound up connecting beefed up pedals and levers to a locomotive generator and letting her spin the actuator. Grant measured the resulting energy output and was impressed. He calculated that 1,000 vampires, feeding on 100,000 cattle could meet the countries energy needs. Then he compared her energy output to her caloric intake. He discovered that she was expending more energy in the testing than she was consuming in calories, and she was gaining weight."

The agent didn't understand this and waited several minutes for Jamie to get to the point. When Jamie didn't elaborate he needed ask about it. "I don't understand," he said. "Why is this unusual and what does this have to do with Mr. Imahara needing psychiatric help?"

"This situation violates the First Law of Physics, mainly the first principle of energetics. According to this principle, the net change in Kari's internal energy should have been equal to the amount of calories she was consuming less the amount of kinetic energy she was expending. Since she was expending more than she was consuming she should have been burning up fat reserves and losing weight. Instead she was gaining weight. Grant checked and rechecked his findings, and continued to monitor Kari's intake, energy output, and her weight. When she continued to violate the Laws of Physics, his sanity started to go."

"It bothered him that much?"

"He's an engineer. He can handle pain, hard work, and fighting the undead. But violate the physical laws of the universe, and his mind starts to slip. He hid it well though, we only found out through blind luck."

The agent gulped four aspirin before managing to ask the next question. "How did you know he was slipping?"

"We found him in a corner of the shop, kneeling in front of portraits of Isaac Newton, Robert Oppenheimer, and Joseph Fourier, asking them 'why have you forsaken me?' We called a psychiatrist right away."

"I can't fault you for that. He was released though, apparently fully recovered, within days. How did he recover so fast?"

"Jamie asked him if calories were the only source of energy to be found. Grant quickly concluded that Kari might be consuming _life_, rather than digesting _calories_. This would explain why she needed an unbroken stream of blood between the donor and her mouth. Blood could form a sort of conduit for the life force to flow. Once Grant realized that he might have a completely unexplained source of energy to work with he came to his senses and started to figure out how to quantify it."

"This helped his sanity?"

"Yep, give an engineer a challenge and he'll be on it like a hungry rottweiler on a raw T-bone."

"What about his theory about vampires powering the country? Please tell me he hasn't tried to sell to anyone outside your little circle of loonies."

"He hasn't had the chance. The Vatican picked up his theories on the webcam and have forbidden further research until they finish debating the issue."

"What are they debating?"

"Is it a sin to make use of the vampires? Technically speaking, they consider the vampires to be evil beings. By utilizing such beings, anybody using the electricity they produce would be consorting with the devil. Some functionaries in the Vatican want to reject the idea out of hand, while others like the idea of requiring indulgences from anyone who uses electricity."

The agent buried his head in his hands and sobbed. After several minutes he gulped six more antacids and four more aspirin, then plunged ahead. "I'm only ready to deal with one more incident. What about Tory's broken ribs, the damage to the stockyards, and the damage to the vehicles at the stockyards?"

"You remember that I said Kari doesn't like drinking blood?"

"Something to that effect."

"The cattle don't like it any more than she does. Her presence causes them to panic. Anyway, the rest of us take turns accompanying her to the stockyards. She keeps her distance while we load a bovine into a branding pen and insert a needle. Then she comes up to feed. We talk to her to keep her mind off of what she is doing and monitor the amount of blood she is taking, so that the cow isn't actually harmed. Then Kari leaves, we mark the cow to make sure we don't bleed it again, and load another one. She feeds on two cattle each night."

"Interesting, in a ghoulish sort of way, but it doesn't explain the incident."

"Right. Tory was accompanying Kari one evening when she couldn't bring herself to feed. Tory tried to use humor. He did the old 'here comes the cho-cho into the tunnel' routine that parents use to get infants to take a mouthful of food. Kari giggled and gave him a little swat."

"So?"

"It was a little swat delivered by someone who can lift a car. Tory flew through a fence and into an adjacent feedlot. Kari was terrified at what she had done and ran to him to see if he was still alive. The cattle in the lot panicked when she barged in and escaped through the gap she had made with Tory's body. The cattle stampeded, denting several vehicles which were in their way, and kept right on running."

"Into the city?"

"The outskirts."

"That also explains the claims from Animal Control. They spent several hours chasing terrified cattle through the city streets."

The agent the sat back and fixed Jamie with a hard look. "So, Mr. Hyneman, what have you found out with all of this testing? If anything has commercial value, we might be able to work out a deal which keeps your premiums under control."

"First of all, we found out that Kari's daylight vision has degenerated roughly twenty percent, and her night vision has enhanced about the same amount. In addition, her vision has shifted toward the infrared. She can actually 'see' the heat that we produce but she can't differentiate between the colors purple and black."

"I hate it when your findings are interesting but this doesn't have any commercial value. Please continue."

"Vampires don't 'bulk up'. Kari and Jess pumped iron for weeks. Jess became stronger and Kari did not. Kari became stronger based upon the amount of 'life' she consumed. She may also become stronger as she ages, but we haven't had enough time to confirm this."

"I feel better when you're being boring. What about the caloric efficiency?"

"Caloric efficiency isn't applicable to vampires. So far we haven't been able to quantify 'life energy' with kinetic energy. Grant is still working on it."

"You mean when he isn't solving global warming?"

"Grant is studying a completely unexplored energy source, he's ecstatic. We have to chase him out of the shop with a cattle prod each night. So far he's identified three factors in converting 'life energy' to kinetic energy: Strength of the donor, health of the donor, and genetic similarity between donor and consumer. To be honest, he has visions of a Nobel Prize once he studies the last factor some more."

"How does he intend to do that?"

"He want's to see if other species are susceptible to becoming vampiric. He is trying to convince Kari to try to convert a goat, a cow, a crocodile, and a goose. If she can do so he will test the kinetic energy boost each species of vampire gains from the same species of prey. Kari isn't interested in helping."

"Wait just a minute! You mean you guys are trying to create a vampire goose?"

"It's in the name of science."

"But you're trying to create a cow that bites other cows on the neck and drains their blood?"

"That's one of the side effects."

"That does it! Mr. Hyneman, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that any additional testing on the dead will result in the immediate dropping of your coverage. We have had enough of these games. You will have this statement, in writing, before the end of the week." The agent leaned back in his chair with an expression of intense relief.

Jamie reported the setback to his employees later that evening.

"Too bad," said Grant. "I had just about nailed down the conversions between life force and kinetic energy. I was almost ready to submit a complete report. The 'Imahara Mortality Equation' had a nice ring to it."

"Yeah," added Tory, who was still favoring his ribs. "Not to mention the chance of cheap, clean energy and the royalties it would have brought us."

"Ah, well," said Jamie. "It won't be the first time the insurance industry has put science and social advancement back a decade or two. I swear we could have developed, and patented, a cure for herpes except they had a problem with us performing Wiccan rituals on that mixture of Tabasco sauce and hemorrhoid cream."

"True," added Adam. "But maybe it's all for the best. Now we can get back to proving or disproving urban legends. Any ideas about the next project?"

"I just realized something," replied Jamie. "The agent said no more testing with the dead. Werewolves aren't dead, are they?"

_My wife posted this story before I had an account. I have reposted so that everyone can blame the correct person._


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